OK, this is unique. "The Nano
Song" is performed here by UC Berkeley students Ryan Miyakawa (music) and Glory Liu (song). Sure,
it is a bit goofy to you and me, but maybe it serves its stated purpose of introducing nanotechnology
into mainstream parlance. Warning, some props are not what they might seem.6/23/2009

There have been many
headlines lately about the shrinking number of women in engineering. Tufts University's
"Nerd Girls" are working to break the stigmas and stereotypes of women in engineering. "We are a growing,
global movement which celebrates smart-girl individuality that's revolutionizing our future. We want
to encourage other girls to change their world through Science, Technology, Engineering and
Math, while embracing their feminine power."
Things They Believe:Brains are beautiful. Geek is Chic. Smart is sexy. Not either/or.5/26/2009

As if we needed another example of sheer governmental
idiocy, here is a cell phone video shot by someone in NYC yesterday as the backup Air Force One 747
flew low over Manhattan while being escorted by an F-16 fighter. The White House wanted a new photo
of the presidential transport with the Statue of Liberty in the background (carbon footprint?). Watch the panicked response of Nyers. Terrorists
(aka those who cause man-made disasters) are getting a good laugh at this. 4/28/2009Just how secure (or not secure) is RFID? Listen to
Mythbusters'
Adam Savage's tale of what happened when they decided to do a story on RFID, and why, so says he, there
never will be an RFID episode. It is a good example of how financial sponsors influence what information
will or will not be presented to the public. There were 210 comments on the video when this was posted.6/30/2009

Wally Wallington reminds me of my father-in-law.
Both guys can move mountains single-handedly, using simple levers, pulleys, and a lot of innate knowledge
about how to move immensely heavy things from point A to point B. Mr. Wallington, a retired carpenter,
erected this 22,000 lb concrete pillar as a demonstration of how monuments such as
Stonehenge could have been built
4,500 years ago.6/2/2009

Proving
once again the capability of determined individuals, auto body repairman Steve Eves, designed, built
and launched this 1/10th scale
Saturn
V rocket. On April 25, 2009, the 36-foot-tall, 1600-lb "model," powered by 9 rocket motors producing
8000 lbs of thrust, experienced an absolutely
flawless launch
and recovery. Incredibly, the gigantic 1st stage landed standing up! More often than not, large projects
like this fail to execute - usually due to a recovery system malfunction.5/5/2009

You know times are not very good when cable news
networks are doing reports on the benefits of high tech pawn shops. This shop in NYC specializes in
iPods, cell phones, camcorders, video games, etc. It definitely does not look like the typical kind
of pawn shop I've seen where shelves are full of dusty, 1970s era stereos, jewelry that looks like it
came from your grandmother's bureau, and beat-up rifles on the wall. One thing the two types of shops
do have in common: they are likely filled with stolen goods.7/7/2009

SolidWorks has a funny set of videos called,
"3 Dudes Gone 3D." In the words of the promo
poster subtitle: "CAD brought them together. A cramped trailer might tear them apart." Stephen, Kish,
and Bob exemplify what a typical SolidWorks environment is like - kind of the mechanical analogy of
AWR's MWO, Zeland's IE3D-SI, or ACS's LINC2.
The shorts are a great marketing scheme - they even sell
ringtones.6/9/2009

By now, most people have seen photos of the world's
first computer mouse, designed by Douglas Engelbart. It was made of wood and had one button. Here is
a demonstration video made on December 9, 1968, during a public debut at the Fall Joint Computer Conference
(FJCC). The NLS computer
it interfaced with was part of the fledgling Arpanet, which evolved into today's Internet.5/12/2009D, C, A, AA,
and AAA battery cells have been around for nearly a century. Now we have T cells, where the T is for
tree. Work being done by MIT uses probes buried in trees and the ground to generate a power source based
on the pH differences. Open circuit voltage ranges between 50 mV and 200 mV. Using a connected mesh
and some circuitry, these networks are targeting forest fire detection and prediction that can be deployed
in high risk areas. Short bursts of info will be sent periodically wirelessly.7/14/2009

CubeSats have been around for a few years now. CubeSat Project was developed by Cal
Poly and Stanford University's Space Systems Development Lab. It creates affordable launch opportunities
for university research. The 10x10x10cm, 1 kg cubes are stuffed into a spring-loaded deployment
tube that ejects them once in orbit. CubeSat Kits can be purchased for around $8k to get you started. Launches cost around
$50k. Workshops are available.6/16/2009

"Our
rock stars aren't like your rock stars." That
is the theme of Intel’s latest series of commercials - ingenious, IMHO. My favorite stars Ajay Bhatt,
co-inventor of the USB. Another is a scenario
only someone who has "been there" searching for a die can fully appreciate.5/19/2009

RF Cafe began life in 1996 as "RF Tools" in an AOL screen name web space totaling
2 MB. Its primary purpose was to provide me with ready access to commonly needed formulas
and reference material while performing my work as an RF system and circuit design engineer.
The Internet was still largely an unknown entity at the time and not much was available
in the form of WYSIWYG
...

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